I woke this morning expecting to read reviews of the newest Batman movie. My 16-year-old son had been counting the days to the premier and was in attendance last night. I had seen that Tyler Segan, our local hockey star, had put out word that he was looking for a date and had gotten hundreds of responses. I was actually thinking about Heath Ledger, who is perhaps my favorite actor of all time for his roles in Brokeback Mountain and as the Joker just before dying of an overdose. The deep dark part of masculinity that Ledger showed in his Joker role seemed somehow connected to his tragic end only months later.
What I didn’t expect was to hear that a Colorado boy had sent tear gas into a packed theater before opening fire in a mass murder rampage. My wife informed me of this over my coffee as I worked furiously on a bunch of trivial fatherly duties.
Honestly, I tried to ignore what she had told me. I didn’t want to hear about another young, white male who had gone supernova, imploding in on himself to such an extent that his only solution was to kill himself and take as many people with him as he could in some cosmic scale cry for help gone horribly wrong. I kept coming back to Heath Ledger as the Joker in my mind’s eye.
Then I began to think about the list–the horrible long list–of similar incidents in the last decade of young people being massacred at the hands of an insane murderer. I tried to come up with one female involved in one of these mass killings. And I couldn’t think of a single one.
So I am left with the question of what is going on with our boys that they exclusively are prone to the strike to such powerful, insane, derranged, and hurtful forces that would cause some tiny fraction to come up with a plan to go into a school or a movie theater or an isolated island to kill as many innocent children as possible?
At its most basic core, the Good Men Project was founded to explore the answer to that question. Unfortunately, as last night demonstrates, we have an awful long way to go.
About Tom Matlack
This article is disappointing and frankly sickening. Less than 24 hours ago a young man committed a horrible, tragic act. Twelve people are dead and around 60 are injured. It is tragic. The man who did this was pretty obviously mentally disturbed. We don’t know why he did what he did, or even if he had a reason. At the moment it is a senseless tragedy.
I have yet to see a politician come on and try to insert a firearm agenda into this discussion, which is more than I can say for you, Tom. How dare you turn this into a discussion of gender. And how dare you write about this tragedy from the perspective of how it affected you. People are right at this moment finding out that their loved ones were injured or dead, and all you can say about it is that you were distraught by the event and that you somehow think that bringing up gender right now is appropriate.
What she said.
.
Oh come on, save the indignation. Tom doesn’t mention firearm agenda in his post or any comments up until now. You’re confusing commenters with posters.
What’s wrong with talking about your personal reaction to a tragedy? Tom isn’t saying that his reaction is some how more important than those actually close to the victims. He’s not going to the victims family and saying, “excuse me, I know you’re grieving and its kind of raw, but what is it with boys these days?” Trying to make sense of a senseless act is what we do as humans. Wanting to know the answer to the question “why” IS an appropriate reaction to this event.
I remember after columbine, my father asked me some new questions about my life and what I saw in my classmates. He looked at the kids there and then looked at me/us: what was the difference? I was on the computer a lot. I wore a trench coat because I thought it was cool (I was wearing it before columbine). I could have easily been hiding that sort of life from him.
Sure, these comments are a lot of sound and fury. People are citing violent incidences which have very independent backgrounds. Andrew Brevik and Seung-Hui Cho have totally different motivations. We want to unify them. Access Guns, Culture violence, Video Games, Bullies, Anomie & Nihilism, etc etc etc.. we need a hook to hang shit like this on and we want it right away.
Its too early to answer, why, but its not to early to want the answer.
“At the moment it is a senseless tragedy.” Yes, it is. and people try to make sense of the senseless.
Heather I actually didn’t say much about the what or the why. I just don’t know. I was just reflecting on the tragedy. If you find that disappointing than don’t read it. I was trying to create space for people to talk about how they felt and also connect it to the mission of GMP. At least from the comments most people got that and appreciated it.
Oh so it’s wrong to bring gender into it now? I suppose a good time to bring it up will be the next time someone wants to show how women aren’t as violent as men and throw around some number about how most violent crimes are committed by men right? Its only fine to talk about the violence that men and boys commit when its used as a silencing tool against men and boys or something? But no that can’t be it because when we stay silent about it people then turn around and want to know why we are silent about it.
I have yet to see a politician come on and try to insert a firearm agenda into this discussion, which is more than I can say for you, Tom.
Funny thing is I don’t see Tom trying to insert a firearm against into this discussion either from this post (although there is a post around here call something like, “So why don’t we need tighter gun laws again?”).
The man who did this was pretty obviously mentally disturbed.
Does this somehow mean that he could not have been or should not have been helped? Helped by some of the systems of support Tom and folks here are trying to muster up?
Yes this is all very chicken little-ish. Mass Murder is much less common than mommy infanticide.
Can’t follow the 2nd part though.
I think it’s pretty simple really. Men grow up being told that, in order to be a man, they have to be either this:
http://www.writerscafe.org/uploads/stories/f411652dd746b72284ad28620e434892.jpg
Or this:
http://www.lasikdenver.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/doctor.jpg
A man is either a master of the physical world or the financial one, ideally both. Some men who fail at the latter take out some of their pain and frustration by becoming a twisted version of the former.
No, no, respectfully, no. I’m so tired of listening to people regurgitate left-over 1960′s crack-pot sociology wishful thinking that we humans are what we are only because ‘society’ has told us how to be, or that we “grow up being told” to do something. You really think this shooter was actually raised to go in and take out a theater of people? Don’t you think there is likely that something lay very deep within his psyche that no matter what, it was waiting to seep out? Yes, we do have cultural influences that shape and form our behaviors in some ways. But when it comes to this type of behavior ,let’s face it, it is exclusively, organically male and It is NOT taught. It may be reinforced with environmental exposure, but to say it is completely taught behavior is simply wrong. There is something primordial in the male human that lies deep and dark and that can in some erupt with explosive ferocity. It is pervasive, It is cross cultural. It is from the dawn of our human existence, and sadly it is never going to change. Violence, war, shooting sprees, rape, destruction is overwhelmingly a MALE thing. On the other hand, males also are the source of the world’s most amazing technologies, the building and execution of societies and the source of almost all the world’s leaders (whether great or terrible). They aren’t just taught how to be this, men simply ARE. As for the violent propensity, my husband, wonderful man that he is, still LOVES blowing things up and killing things in his video games. He wasn’t taught that. He just simply is male and has had that streak within him because he is male. Maleness runs in the veins and in the brains. What has to be taught is not how to make men violent, but how to give men the tools to control the violent instincts he already has. http://www.amazon.com/Demonic-Males-Origins-Human-Violence/dp/0395877431
@JC ….How does this address the fact that women have done similar, as was pointed out in another response?
Oh, please, men are far more likely to kill than women and statistics prove it.
So it’s less about being a man, more about being human?
Men are more likely to get caught.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/02/10987663-nurse-sentenced-to-life-for-killing-patients-by-injecting-them-with-bleach?lite
This article has more nurse mass murderers.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/angels/female_nurses/index.html
“An average of 195,000 people in the USA died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, according to a new study of 37 million patient records that was released today by HealthGrades, the healthcare quality company.”
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/11856.php
95% of nurses are women. We know nurses have killed before and with almost 200,000 people dying from preventable medical error, it makes you wonder.
Women are also the primary caretakers of children and that doesn’t count deaths from “SIDS”.
No amount of gun control can heal a broken spirit. Hurt people hurt people. To blame this on the method is part of the problem that ignores mental illness. We need to create a culture that encourages people in pain to seek help.
Blaming the method also spits in the face of the way we allow children to grow up with inefficient coping skills for the reality of life. Sometimes life hurts. Sometimes it doesn’t. And if you grow up insulated from any painful consequence, how can you ever expect to feel real joy?
When our culture glorifies things that aren’t real: a flawless football program, video games, porn, happiness in a pill, etc. and rejects perceived “ugly” things that are real: pain/tears that come with failure, insecurity, rejection, thwarted dreams, it all comes out sidewise like the casings from an automatic assault rifle.
@Joss … yup
Seriously? You’re going to lump every bit of fantasy entertainment in? Maybe it’s the fact that men in particular aren’t encouraged to open up n seek support for their pain. Maybe it’s just some people crack and want to kill a lot of people…
“Blaming the method also spits in the face of the way we allow children to grow up with inefficient coping skills for the reality of life”
99.9% of kids will never commit a mass murder, regardless of their “coping skills.”
I suspect it is one part stripping down of boys self esteem, tearing boys down so that girls can shine (examples, see zero tolerance policies and the current Title IX plans for STEMFields). One part denying boys support and empathy, men are expected to be tough and stoic, are ridiculed when they are not, but furthermore, they are even denied the right to be a victim (see VAWA and Verizon’s monster PSA). Lastly is one part self fulfilling prophesy, as we have been telling society that boys and men are toxic, dangerous and violent. It’s been said before (I think by Archy, but I could be mistaken) “A society that despises it’s men will raise despicable men”.
Some truth there Mark. Obviously I have spent a lot of time looking for men who are inspiring (to me anyhow) in hopes that we can change the view of manhood.
Tom, I’ve been working with violent men for more than 40 years and its clear to me that the causes of violence are multi-dimensional and reducing violence will require that we make changes on the personal level, the inter-personal level, and on the societal level. The World Health Organization published a report on Violence and health: In the introduction Nelson Mandela said, “Many who live with violence day in and day out assume that it is an intrinsic part of the human condition. But this is not so. Violence can be prevented. Violent cultures can be turned around. In my own country and around the world, we have shining examples of how violence has been countered. Governments, communities and individuals can make a difference.”
One of the great things about the Good Men Project is that there is an honest look at the part each of us plays in creating a more non-violent world, how our interpersonal and social relationships influence things, and how our societal practices, beliefs, longings, and fears, influence public policy. The diversity of ideas is evident in this column and other related ones.
I usually say “Treat men like animals and don’t be surprised when they become them”. Mostly in regards to prison but it does apply elsewhere.
Uneducated right-wing people always want to blame feminism for everything bad that happens to men or boys. They project their hatred of feminists onto events like this which is just ludicrous because 99.99 percent of men and boys will never commit a mass murder
Funny, I didn’t mention feminism in my post. I mentioned a number of ways men are harmed, and a number of policies and tendencies that have a hugely negative impact on men. You’re the one that connected the dots to feminism.
As to your second paragraph, is it not a feminist who is here writing an article of how evil men are for being all the mass murderers, despite the fact, by your own words, 99.99 percent of men and boys will never commit mass murder (or any murder for that matter, mass or otherwise)? Is it not a feminist projecting their hatred of men in this article, as you accuse me of doing? Why is it this article doesn’t also acknowledge the 4 men who died protecting others in their view of men?
I have an idea… instead of attacking me personally, claiming my points are just a projection of my hatred for feminism onto these events, how about you actually address my points. But you can’t, can you. Because you know I’m right. You were able to recognize the issues I describe AND associate them to feminism without my help, and so you resort to personal attacks as your only option.
I must apologize to Tom. I got this article and the other one on this topic mixed up, this article is not the one I feel is “a feminist projecting their hatred of men” within their article.
I’m breaking my rule of not posting to say this…
It is a combination of factors. It is the fact that society insists men cannot be victims. We are not allowed to take the role of victim even if we are victimized. We are shamed and isolated if we choose to show emotion publicly that isn’t bravado or anger.
It is a society that stigmatizes mental health issues for all and doubly so for men. Men who are suffering are told not to speak up. We can’t ask for help because we aren’t supposed to need it. We retreat to web forums and anonymous postings with other individuals who are suffering just the same, but this does not fix the problem.
It is a society that demonizes men. Men take the blame for almost all of the world’s ills, and we are simultaneously told that we both cannot be victims and anything bad that happens to us and others is our fault. We’re falling behind in academics but it is our fault. We’re falling behind in employment but it is our fault. The sins of all human history are being placed upon our shoulders.
We collapse in on ourselves and hope, pray, that someone will notice we are struggling and ask, “Are you okay?” We cannot ask for help because it makes us weak, a loser, a pussy, gay. We let our suffering seep through, our agony, and long for an observant outsider to see our desperate, silent plea for help. Our frantic, coded suffering goes unnoticed. Our prayers go unanswered.
We come to the conclusion that no one cares. We are suffering and no one cares enough to notice and ask if we need help. We suffer alone and in silence, and we get angry. Anger, misery, suffering, and desperation swirl and stew within us. We lose control of it. We try to keep it locked away and under control but it continues to build. The pressure mounts. It begins to leak through the cracks. What was once turned inward upon ourselves starts to expand outward into the world. Impatience, irritability, random acts of aggression and anger. We can contain it no longer and we explode.
We were suffering and no one noticed or cared. Now you will. You will see, you will ALL see, and you will care, but it will be too late.
THAT is how these things happen.
Well said Collin. Makes me think of the men I have interviewed who have come home from war with PTSD. So hard to get them to admit they even have a problem because they have been told for so long that to show weakness is not manly.
Obviously in the end it is the weakness, the failure, the admission of pain that sets us free as men. Or at least it did me. I held it all in until one day my world blew up. I had to admit complete defeat. Then everything changed and my view of manhood with it.
Collin,
This is all good, but you missed the final point:
You will see, you will ALL see, and you will care, but it will be too late, because I can buy a gun, and no-one will ask me why. I can buy another and another and the only concern will be how much ammunition.
It has always stuck me as a bit ingenuous that we don’t ask ‘What are you planning to use the gun for’ questions. If I want to buy a hammer, the sales person will ask all sorts of questions about how I intend to use it, and no one calls that ‘Hammer Control’.
To stop the violence we need to deal with the underlying pain and suffering AND start asking questions the why and how questions at gun sales.
I wonder if there’s any way to provide an incentive for those questions to be regularly asked at gun sales. Like maybe a bounty on reporting suspicious people if it turns out they in fact had something disqualifying them from buying a firearm.
Side note: Colorado requires background checks for all gun sales.
The issue with the gun is that it makes one an efficient mass murderer. A person armed with a knife is less like to attack a packed movie theater so the presence of the gun expands the number of potential targets. There was a reason the terrorist used five guys per plane on 9/11. They only had box cutters and needed the numbers to intimidate the passengers.
I don’t have a problem with restricting or banning the sale of guns, but right now, I have little fear of walking the streets at night. That might change in 10 or 20 years. People can use pepper spray and that might be an option.
“I don’t have a problem with restricting or banning the sale of guns, but right now, I have little fear of walking the streets at night.”
Agreed. My problem with the whole gun control aspect is threefold. 1:Banning guns isn’t going to do anything to address the cause of these events, it will only change the tools used. And last thing I want is more suicide bombers because guns became harder to get. 2: Most of the problems revolving around guns (IE gang activity and armed robbery) involve illegally possessed guns. Meaning gun control will have very little impact on these events. 3: Using a tragedy like this to push an agenda that won’t actually address the issues is insulting the everyone. I see trying to turn someones murder into a political tool the victim may or may not have agreed with, to be extremely callous. It also seems to deny the perpetrators suffering and motives, as if they were some average person who decided to buy a gun to kill people, and had he not had access to that gun, things would be all honky dory.
It’s easier to kill a lot of people with a gun, but you can still wreak a lot of havoc with just a knife and a truck.
Thank you for hitting the nail on the head. In a society that hammers into mens heads that if they talk to women about how they feel, it is a major turn off. Where women are taught that men are “easy to figure out” and where when asked what is on your mind, most men prefer to default to “nothing” rather then explain the long chain of events that is going on inside their heads (I still do this unfortunately) It practically becomes instinctual to not say anything for fear of what someone else might think. It is not uncommon for ANYONE, both men and women to think about killing other people, however if a woman says it out loud, its funny, if a man does, he will be talking to the police shortly after.
But lets ignore the fact that the primary reason women don’t go on shooting sprees, is because they don’t invest in the firepower as a hobby for the purpose of distracting them from how miserable their life is, when you go down that path and decide suicide is the answer, taking people with you seems trivial. and hey, you already have the weapons.
Instead lets just posit that all men are monsters, and its purely genetic. That way we don’t have to fix anything.
I like how these “genetics” (in response to JC) seem to primarily only effect Americans. Thats some really selective genetics.
But lets ignore the fact that the primary reason women don’t go on shooting sprees, is because they don’t invest in the firepower as a hobby for the purpose of distracting them from how miserable their life is,….
I dare say a reason more primary than this is that women are not only not getting “violence is the answer, violence is the way to prove you’re a man, violence is a major part of your gender identity” drilled into their heads but they are for the most part actively turned away from it in the form of getting “violence is not the answer, violence proves you are not a woman, violence is not a part of your gender identity” drilled into their heads.
I also think it’s a cop out to just try to end the discussion on men making up the majority of suicides by chirping “men only make up the majority because they pick more violent means” and then ignore WHY they pick more violent means.
I agree with you, i would also add (though this is just my personal opinion) I think the reason men choose more violent means is because when you (men) are basically told to bottle everything up inside, and men are also told they have to be assertive, then any decision you (men) make, is final. When your decision is final, you don’t fuck around. This is very common, it is not all that different from when men break up a relationship and just cut it off (as apposed to talking it out) conversely you can look at the behavior in female suicides the same way, where females are expected to ask for help, so they choose a method that can be easily identified as a call for help. Men choose more violent methods, because they are not expecting to get help, and in fact, are “programmed” to specifically not ask for help. Asking for Driving directions are a good example of this. Few things are more crushing to a man, then attempting suicide and failing, and they know that.
Jennifer San Marco; shot and killed 6 people on the 30th of January 2006 in Goleta, California.
Earlier than a decade ago:
Sylvia Seegrist: Shot and killed 3 people and wounded 7 on 30th of October 1985.
Laurie Wasserman Dann entered a Elementary school in Illinois om May 20, 1988 and shot and killed one 8 year old boys and wounded 5 other children. She then invaded a home and held a family hostage before she shot and wounded a man and then she killed herself. Earlier she had tried to poison countless people with arsenic laced juice and snacks samples. She had tried to set of a fire bomb at a school and she had trapped a mother and two children in a basement while she set fire to their house.
Brenda Spencer (16) killed 2 and injured 9 people when she fired her .22 into a schoolyard on January 29th 1979. As a reason she said that she didn’t like Mondays. This was the inspiration for the song “I don’t like Mondays” by the Boomtown Rats which was a #1 single in the UK for 4 weeks later in 1979.
In fact the first school massacre in the US occured back in 1927 in Michigan and it is also the deadliest one with 44 dead and 58 injured.
Although the frequency seem to be increasing (I haven’t researced by how much) and the majority of perpetrators are men I find it a bit myopic to claim that it never happened before and that it’s only men who commit mass murder.
Thanks for the correction on women murderers, Tamen. I wasn’t trying to make this post a research piece since I know very little on this topic just my reactions to today’s news. I don’t think I said that it never happened before. I do feel that it is happening more often.
No, you didn’t say it categorically and I should’ve used the word “imply” rather than “claim”.
You are of course right that men are more often than women perpetrators of crimes like this. This suggest to me that it’s not something inherent in men (if only men did commit such crimes it could suggest such a thing). Hence I felt it was important to point out that there indeed has been female perpetrators of this type of crime.
Oh, please, get real. 99% of mass murderers and serial killers are male. And funny how you use a case from 1979 to “prove” that the number of mass murders by women is increasing. Your “proof” seems to come in the form of anecdotal evidence rather than statistics.
It was not my intention to prove that the frequency of mass murders with female perpetrators have been increasing.
It seems there has been a misunderstanding regarding my statement:
By this I meant to refer to the superset of mass murders regardless of the gender of the perpetrators. In short; even though school massacres have been recorded as early as 1927 in the US incidents of that type have a higher frequency now than back then.
I hope that cleared that up.
I have said nothing about how large a percentage of mass murderers are female. I’ve simply stated that they do exist when people have implied that there only are male mass murderers. You stated an number for the distribution between male and female mass murderers and serial killers as 99% male. I do suspect you just pulled that out of your ass (since you did not provide any source for that number – a source would be a quick way to disprove my suspicion if you are so inclined). I must admit I found it amusing that your next sentence was an accusation that I used anecdotal evidence rather than statistics as proof. That accusation is in fact correct as anecdotes (verifiable that is) can be used to disprove the non-existence of something – which was what I set out to do – to disprove that there only was male mass murderers.
When I wrote this reply I did in fact do a quick Google search and found this (which you can trust or not, but it’s at least sourced):
source: Psychology Today: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-equation/201205/female-serial-killers
99%, 90%, 85% or something else is not really the point here. The existence of female mass murders (and female serial killers) will have an impact on how to analyze and what conclusion one comes to when one is discussing and trying to find out how to prevent/minimize these incidents in the future (for one it cannot be said to be something biological inherent in exclusively the male psyche which is causing this since female offenders do exists).
I don’t have a good analysis and I don’t have the answers (I suspect mental health and gender roles and availability and quality of help for mental health problems plays a major part), but I’ve seen from how a one sided and/or genderized focus on a problem (rape and DV for example) have led to a suboptimal way of handling the problem overall.
Here are some more:
http://hunteremkay.com/2011/11/famous-women-mass-murderers-in-recent-history/
I think each mass shooting has to be viewed on a case-by-case basis. In cases like Columbine and Virginia Tech, it’s easy to see that they were psychopaths or had a history of mental illness. In this particular case, this Aurora man appears to have been extremely intelligent and possibly so intelligent that at some point he went mad. There is a fine line between intelligence and insanity.
Murder is suicide turned outward. Most troubled females are more likely to committ suicide privately through overdosing on pills, slitting their wrists, or through asphyxiation. Most males will likely committ suicide privately as well but they are more likely to use a gun than their female counter parts. Then you have murder-suicides, again mostly male dominated but not always. Mothers suffering from post-partum depression often fantasize about committing suicide but then they think ‘who will take care of the children, I should kill them too, and who will take care of the dog, I have to kill the dog as well’. Mass murders are male dominated. Are men, suffering from mental illness, more likely to feel less than or wronged by society in such a way that they feel society must feel their wrath.
Is the answer administering psychological evaluations and make them as important as our standardized tests in school. Do we do this yearly to monitor students as we know some mental illness doesn’t materialize until the early 20′s. Do we make more of a conscious effort to get to know those who have isolated themselves or do we accept that fact that in a large society of people, some will always fall through the cracks regardless of our due diligence.
Do you take the same laisse faire attitude when women do bad things, OR have bad things done to them, you must be a wizz when people disguss trying to cut down on rapes…”Oh well, people will just rape other people , no big deal”
Janet – I was just throwing my opinion out there and I certainly don’t have the answers. While I may not be a ‘wizz’ at least I can address other adults with a certain amount of respect. I’m not one who gets off on long posts and I expect most people can connect the dots on their own. Rape obviously happens more often than mass murder and the motivation is quite different.
@ Leyla
I agree with much of what you said, but there are minor points.
“Murder is suicide turned outward. Most troubled females are more likely to committ suicide privately through overdosing on pills, slitting their wrists, or through asphyxiation.”
I think most murders are just murders, not suicides turned outward. I think you’re right in this case because it seems as if he knew this was it for him as with many of the other mass murderers. It’s probably worth noting that this wasn’t the case with Timothy McVeigh. His choice of weapon, car bomb, indicated thoughts of escape.
Many women utilize suicide attempts as a cry for help. They don’t use quick, highly effective means. Many might not turn the suicide outward because they’re not sure about the suicide. One thing about female murderers is that they overwhelmingly tend to kill intimates. About 5% of murdered men are killed by an intimate. About 4% of murdered men are killed by a female intimate. You would expect that 76% of all murdered men (.95 x .8) are killed by female non-intimates. That’s not the case by far.
@John,
I suppose I should have been more clear in regard to ‘murder is suicide turned outward’ in regard to mass murder.
This is from a NY Times article ‘The Unknown Why in the Aurora Killings’, ‘Psychologists describe depression as anger turned inward. When that anger is somehow turned around, and projected outward, watch out.’
And I completely agree with you that women who attempt suicide are often times crying for help and they aren’t completely convinced so they are less likely to turn it outward onto others.
Another possible contributing factor; society tends to support a man’s right to be angry more so than it does their right to admit depression or seek psychiatric help, therapy, etc. Men are supposed to be strong and boys shouldn’t have feelings. We say things like ‘man-up’ and maybe we aren’t giving boys and men an outlet to express their feelings without attacking their masculinity.
@John,
I suppose I should have clarified; I meant the ‘murder is suicide turned outward’ in regard to mass murders.
The other thing I wonder about is, as a society, are we more supportive of a man’s right to anger than we are if he had depression, or sought help through a psychiatrist or therapist. We say things like ‘man-up’ because men aren’t supposed to have feelings. Are we giving boys and men an outlet to express themselves without attacking their masculinity?
“We say things like ‘man-up’ because men aren’t supposed to have feelings.”
Is that the case? Or is it not possible man up is said because a man is supposed to be in control of his feelings, not ruled by them?
I think we all know the connotation of ‘man-up’ in today’s society. Every person should be able to control their feelings but expressing ones feelings does not mean they are ruled by them.
Is that the case? Or is it not possible man up is said because a man is supposed to be in control of his feelings, not ruled by them?
Possible, just not very likely.
It’s not that a man is supposed to be in control of his feelings in fact I’d say it’s quite the opposite in a lot of cases. Telling a guy to “man up” usually more “You are doing something with your feelings that neither I nor society approve of. You should be doing it the way we say you should” than “You should keep your feelings in check.”
“you should be doing it the way we say you should in no way denies the existence of feelings, which is what my initial objection was. Don’t get me wrong, I dislike the term man up, but I do not agree it is a denial of the existence of male feelings or even a denial of the acceptance that emotions exist within men (as per Leyla’s assertion), only a denial of the opportunity to express them however one desires. At least, when men say it to other men. When men tell other men to man up, it is usually accompanied by an acknowledgement of their feelings, then disapproval of their expression “you’re being a sissy crying like that, man up” isn’t saying, you don’t have feelings, or you shouldn’t have feelings, its saying your expressing your feelings wrong (IE, your crying, not, your feeling sad. Also common with whining and frustration. it’s ok to be frustrated, but whinning about it is not an acceptable method of expression. man up).
(Thinking about this a bit I may be about to go against what I said above.)
but I do not agree it is a denial of the existence of male feelings or even a denial of the acceptance that emotions exist within men (as per Leyla’s assertion)
I think, at least in some cases, it is exactly that that is going on.
With your example of sadness yes there times where the use of “man up” is what you say but also it is used in the form of denying men their feelings, no acknowledgement included.
When men tell other men to man up, it is usually accompanied by an acknowledgement of their feelings, then disapproval of their expression “you’re being a sissy crying like that, man up” isn’t saying, you don’t have feelings, or you shouldn’t have feelings, its saying your expressing your feelings wrong (IE, your crying, not, your feeling sad. Also common with whining and frustration. it’s ok to be frustrated, but whinning about it is not an acceptable method of expression. man up).
And when that acknowledgement is removed and denial is in its place that “man up” example you mention becomes. “What in the world are you sad for? Real men don’t get sad!”
I’ll agree that the way you explain it does happen. But that ain’t the only way it is used. And besides as long as they don’t succumb to the urge to resort to nothing but whining and crying, what’s wrong with doing so?
” But that ain’t the only way it is used.”
Never claimed it was.
That was at your disagreement that it is a denial of male feelings.
Sorry Danny, but I asked if it was possible it was something else. You have since agreed it could be. At no point did I say it wasn’t a denial, only questioned if denial was “the” explanation.
No need to apologize.
When you replied to my first response here you said you don’t agree that it is a denial of male feelings which prompted me to continue.
So just to be clear are we by chance both agreeing that sometimes it’s a denial of male feelings, sometimes an attempt to get a guy to reign in his feelings, etc…
James Holmes is a 24-year-old man, not a boy. We do not know anything about him other than his name, what college he graduated from, and that he was methodical in his attack on the people in the theater. We should not jump to conclusions about why Holmes did what he did, let alone speculate about how this is somehow connected to masculinity.
When I read about the shooting the first thing I thought of was men commit suicide four times as often as women. Could this be another manifestation of that? The shooter like most of them had to recognize that this was going to be the end for him, whether he rots in prison or is killed. He supposedly even booby trapped his residence.
I suspect that the difference is that in these cases the young men decide to go out with a bang to either gain notoriety or give society, who they may have seen as wronging them, the finger one last time.
Support services for men is sorely lacking in society. Couple that with the idea that men shouldn’t seek help and that one of the few “societally acceptable” responses a man may have is anger and by relation violence and you have a recipe for disaster. He was a graduate student. I wonder if his university had a men’s center. I doubt it.
“So I am left with the question of what is going on with our boys that they exclusively are prone to the strike to such powerful, insane, derranged, and hurtful forces that would cause some tiny fraction to come up with a plan to go into a school or a movie theater or an isolated island to kill as many innocent children as possible?”
If the “exclusively” were true, than this would be a statement about girls and we should ask why aren’t they doing such things. As only “some tiny fraction” of the boys engages in such appalling behaviour, those incidents tell us close to nothing about “the boys”.
More generally, I wonder, if the perspective is reasonable (it is surely understandable), if we are not accustomed to an extraordinary peaceful non violent state and hence have problems understanding violent behaviour. This can be a question of perspective though, I am from Germany and can not help but think that 70 years ago many seemingly decent young German men participated in mass murder and torture. One doesn’t to go back in time, one can look at Islamist terrorists in todays world.
There is a difference though between my examples and the example given by Tom Matlack, in my examples there is at least some support from the societies the perpetrators come from, in Tom’s examople there is non. Knowing that what is the anomaly our anti-violent societies or that a small minority of young men sís murderous?
Chances are in this case, this guy will more then likely have some mental health issues which in this case AGAIN shows how men/boys are being ignored as to their needs. Two words, “hopelessness” and “helplessness “
After skimming through the various responses, I hope this doesn’t turn into a gun rights thread, or a feminists are the reason thread. It’s not getting us anywhere fast. We, as a society, needs to start to pay attention to what’s going on with men/boys and start to think about solutions.
Mental illness (which in my eyes includes addictions) is poorly funded. When I started working in the residential treatment center, the program was 9 to 12 months (average census 38). Then maybe 5 years ago it went to 6 to 9 months (average census 35). Two years ago, due to state funding problems and the introduction of “managed care” it dropped to 15 to 45 days (average census 12). After a group of us went to Springfield (state capital) they removed the managed care and we went back up to 90 to 120 days (average census 32). I’m speaking of the adolescent boys unit alone. We also have a 38 bed adult male unit as well as a 14 bed adolescent recovery home (halfway house for adolescents). By the way, we closed our 35 bed adolescent girls unit when managed care hit.
Getting the changes done is temporary. One other large agency like ours has already ramped up for managed care and have reduced their residential to 30 to 45 days. People are scrambling place these kids in longer programs but as long as the funding is limited, it’s a matter of time before we realign our program as well.
It’s also important to note that adolescent treatment is far different then adult. It deals with developmental issues that adult treatment doesn’t.
Several “mental health” facilities also closed. These facilities dealt primarily with major psych issues but the funding went away.
If you have health insurance, take a look at you mental health benefits. If you’re lucky, you have 30 days inpatient. And outpatient services are just as restrictive. Yet in a lot of these shooting cases, mental health is part of the problem.
Education of the populous. People are not educated on mental health but are quick to medicate. It’s popular in schools to have the active kids drugged up these days. Some parents though do have the insight to question the schools view of the childs behavior issues.
Observe behaviors and stop trying to be a kids friend. Stop saying “he’s just going through a stage.”
With Obama Care around the corner, has anyone looked at the mental health benefits? Does anyone care? To now, it’s been the federal government that’s mandated levels of care in mental health as well as other benefit levels.
We really need to work on a solution and not point fingers. Men’s health? Huh … does society really care about it? Why aren’t we pushing for it?
12 dead in a mass shooting, endless medial coverage but we also have the following which in not recognized nearly on the same scale … how come?
Jun 17, 2012 – Another sweltering weekend brought more violence to Chicago’s streets – with eight people killed and 37 others wounded in shootings
July 18, 2012 at 12:00 a.m. … Meanwhile, more people have been stabbed to death in Chicago so far this year than in all of 2011
I would venture to say that many of the above involve teens.
Tom, you make a good point. As we look at the various risk factors for increased violence, we have to look beyond the individual. You point to other factors that we need to address such as our practices that increasingly heat up the planet. When people are sweltering, it contributes to increased risk. Also as we have more young men who don’t have mentoring, don’t have jobs, and don’t feel connected to the community, violence is more prevalent. There is no one cause that will explain what happened in Colorado, but multiple risk factors can be addressed and changed to lower the risk for everyone.
Jed, as I said before. Helplessness and hopelessness, two words that sum up many of the kids that I work with.
It breaks my heart when a young man is sitting in front of me and seriously says that he doesn’t expect to live to see the age of 21 and accordingly, why should he bother with treatment much less a plan to go to school and finish.
I’d also like to ask this. Why is the wrap/pop music industry off limits as to regulating what they produce? This has been a thorn in big toe for many years. I’d even question “Another one bites the dust” by Queen, the unedited version that goes back to the 1970’s. It promotes gang violence, killing, and drugs. It was mild compared to a lot of the music that’s produced today.
Again, educating the people is vital. I work with a lot of gang members so I have to be on top of any gang representation. I can’t tell you how many times a parent is sitting in front of me at intake and says their young boy has no gang affiliation but when I screen their belongings, bingo bongo, there it is….. clothing, symbols, note pads with symbols …. When the nurse documents tattoos, there it is again.
What does it tell me about our society when a kid tells me that he “banged his first babe” when he was the age of 12 and the “babe” was his 18 year old baby sitter? What’s it tell me when I bring in a 14 year old that has two kids? Or when a mother in a family session is told by her son that he was sexually molested when he was 6-8 and she says “you’ll get over it, I did.”
Yup, it’s a problem on many many levels. It’s too late to plug holes in the damn, the damn has already broke.
Tom,
As you may know I’ve been working to help men and the women who love them for more than 40 years. I just launched a program with a number of colleagues to Save a Million Males over the next 3 years. You can check it out at my website, http://www.MenAlive.com. Sounds like we are on a similar path.
He didn’t kill himself.
That is like saying suicide by cop is not real.
I think Jill’s point was that he’s still alive. More like attempted suicide by cop. Except he also surrendered without a fight.
All about the ego, or rather lack of. Men have a lot of latent aggression. You need self esteem (ego) to channel it into something constructive. If not… You know the rest
I don’t think a lot of generalizations can be taken from a mass murder. The drivers in this case that have to be studied are much more specific to this one person. There is an adage that bad law and policies, typically come from extreme cases.
I think there is less to learn here than most people think, except maybe how easy it is for another person to randomly end your life.
It appears the guy was schizophrenic. The school shrink–which means he was seeing someone for his problem–sent a warning to the school authorities. What happened to that warning is not yet known. But perhaps his dropping out interrupted the communication line to….whoever was supposed to get it next. (Wonder if there’s a procedure for passing on the information to non-school authorities).
All of which invalidates 90% of the we-have-a-terrible-society-especially-regarding-men speculation. Better to wait for the facts, unless unloading the aforementioned speculation is an end in itself.
As to sweltering; do we know if he was doing without air conditioning? I don’t think he was a laborer on highway construction….